Workers Meet Disrespect with Anger

Fitness and Lifestyle Group owns Fitness First and Goodlife Health Clubs, running over 150 clubs around Australia. In late 2023, FLG management announced a massive organizational change. Management’s restructure included new class limits and scheduling arrangements, which meant lower pay for many instructors. It also imposed a new scheduling regime that meant less flexible hours, both harming instructors’ work-life balance and further constraining their ability to care for their students.

In response, a vibration rippled through FLG clubs. Workers were already fed up with precarious employment, and this was the final straw. As one worker wrote at the time,

There could be no clearer way for a company to send the message to its staff that it doesn’t care one bit about them, than by the blanket imposition of constraints pre-decided in the absence of consultation and due consideration.

Over the six months that followed, outrage simmered. FLG workers around the country convened in online spaces, inviting their coworkers to join the conversation, leading to an uptick of union membership.

At the same time, FLG workers began researching their rights. Fueled by anger at managerial disrespect, instructors hunted down and trawled through the enterprise agreements (EAs) governing Fitness First and Goodlife, as well as the Fitness Award, which covers the industry as a whole. They also compared their conditions against the National Employment Standards, which lay out minimum rights and conditions for all workers.

They discovered that Goodlife Health Clubs had not negotiated a new EA in years. Thanks to new industrial legislation, however, the archaic “zombie agreement” that was still in place was set to expire in December 2023. This gave workers an opportunity — and they decided they wanted to bargain collectively for improved conditions.

The company, however, refused to come to the table. Consequently, Goodlife Health Clubs defaulted back to the minimum standards outlined in the fitness award. Workers at Fitness First, meanwhile, continued under their existing EA, which had seen their pay and conditions deteriorate for years.

Instead of inflicting a terminal defeat, however, these setbacks further galvanized instructors who understood it as just another sign of disrespect.

Growing numbers of workers began comparing stories and experiences and quickly a picture of widespread wage stagnation emerged. It became clear that pay was being held down by a tangle of legacy rates that hadn’t changed in years, inconsistent performance review administration, and management’s lack of transparency around penalties and allowances. Most significantly, many instructors revealed that their rate of pay for one class had remained the same since the date of their engagement. Many claimed that in upward of fifteen years working for FLG, their pay had not risen once.

Fair Pay for Labor of Love

Union delegates organized surveys of FLG workers to determine the scope and severity of wage stagnation. They found that it was indeed endemic — and in real terms, this meant workers had been enduring pay cuts by stealth, sometimes upward of 30 percent. For example, take a cohort of workers who, since 2009, had been paid a fixed rate of AU$42.50 per class. Adjusted for inflation, today’s equivalent would be over AU$61.50 per class.

One worker summed it up: “We put our hearts and souls into the clubs for what? Loyalty and dedication obviously doesn’t get rewarded at FLG.” “Gym memberships are on the rise,” another pointed out, “and we don’t get to see that money in our bank accounts.” Instead, FLG was turning increased revenue from customers’ fees into pure profit.

UWU members convened and formulated a plan. If the company wasn’t going to negotiate in good faith, they would launch a public campaign. They followed through, launching a Megaphone petition on February 23 this year demanding wage justice.

The petition had two main asks. First, it demanded that management “immediately correct any pay discrepancies under their existing pay structure.” Second, it demanded FLG “commit to a pay structure overhaul that values employees contribution, developed in consultation with union members”

The petition gathered momentum among workers, community supporters, and activist allies, rapidly drawing in over thirty-six thousand signatures. The comments left alongside signatures were unanimous. As one read, “I am sick of people being exploited by big companies that don’t want to look after their most valuable asset, their human employees.” Another suggested a company rebrand, from “Fitness First” to “Fat Profits First.”

It took less than two weeks for management to cave in to the pressure. FLG issued comms to staff members committing the company to lifting the minimum class rate to $45 and guaranteeing an annual pay review with a possible increase of 2 percent for all instructors. For the lowest paid instructors, a minimum class rate of $45 means an 8 percent pay boost. For another large cohort of low paid instructors, it represented a rise of 6 percent.

Going the Distance

Although they were spread across the country and new to the union movement, after six months of organizing, a militant minority of group fitness instructors won a significant victory against a major corporation.

Like most union struggles, however, this outcome is far from final. “I think we should celebrate,” said one UWU member, “and then continue to add more fuel to the fire and make this fire of revolution burn brighter.” Another commented that there are “still ten years of catching up to be done.”

Already, however, insights can be gained from their efforts. And some of these challenge the conventional wisdom of the union movement.

Historically, unions have tended to overlook industries where casual and precarious forms of employment are widespread, like fitness, hospitality, farm work, and others. This is often justified by the claim that it’s too difficult to organize industries where work is insecure and impermanent, or where the workforce is disproportionately young, migrant dense, or atomized.

But these hurdles are not insurmountable, and focusing on them can get in the way of recognizing strengths that can help compensate. Industries like fitness or hospitality, for example, are stacked full of people who love their jobs but are exploited terribly. The work is fulfilling enough to stay while conditions are bad enough to motivate workers to fight back — it’s a highly flammable combination.

In addition, in many such industries, organic solidarity networks connect workers across different workplaces and with their local communities. Indeed, this is an often overlooked consequence of hypercasualized industries where it’s common to shift between multiple employers — not only over the course of a career, but often within one working week. Industries where everyone already knows everyone else are fertile ground for organizing.

Ultimately, however, the most important lesson is that the union movement can only succeed when it places its trust in groups of workers, understanding that they are the ultimate authority on their capacity to organize, fight, and win. The FLG wage justice campaign was led by autonomous and headstrong instructors determined to make tangible change after over a decade of disrespect and hyperexploitation.

It also helps that strength and endurance training is, quite literally, part of their job. And, as an UWU official put it, “I’ve never thought about it before, but they are organizers.” In addition to being athletes, fitness workers are also educators. They thrive on collective success and good outcomes, and a huge part of their work involves motivating others to achieve their goals. It’s no wonder they’re born unionists.